lookingback

Reflections

A Look Back at Micro-Teaching

As Scarlett O’Hara would say, tomorrow is another day. Thank goodness.

The obvious first reaction to our micro-teaching activity is one of
frustration because of a technical glitch that was distracting and hurt
the pacing. I’ve spent the whole semester stretching vis-à-vis
technology and worked to prevent technical
issues with our document and projection, so this was disappointing. Doing this over, I would still elect
to use a PowerPoint introduction — because in a real classroom I think
it would create much more interest in an e-pal program and stimulate
more ideas than a teacher lecture alone. But I would also check all university-provided equipment in advance, including the clicker. I could
have bought one (worth the investment, useful in other settings) or
hooked up a mouse. (As an aside, I do think Jessica Chen, who had to
deal with this in a live setting, handled the situation well.)

Apart from technology, I have several questions.

The first deals with rate of speech. Although we need to help students
learn to listen to naturally spoken English, I still think that
overseas high school students will not be able to comprehend rapid
English and that at times some slowing down, intentional distinctness
of speech, simplification of normal vocabulary, and repetition will be
necessary. (All of these help with the Chinese ESL students with whom I
volunteer.) I had this in mind but do not know whether my rate and
choice of words were good for the target students in our activity.

The second deals with the degree of formality or informality
appropriate for a classroom, which will vary by setting. I am not sure
what degree of distance between teacher and student would be required
in Japan and perhaps was too formal.

The third deals with
class participation. We tried to be realistic about this, based on
comments by Akiko Kondo and Lindsey Gradolph that Japanese students
generally don’t speak up in class on their own. I deliberately did not
ask whether anyone knew what a “pal” was because I would expect no
response in a Japanese classroom. But my personal preference would
always be to ask for student input. So, without experience in that
setting, I’m not sure what would work best.

Finally: We isolated
two parts of this activity. In a real classroom, we would take more
time, explaining the project in more detail and asking what questions
students had. And it would be freeing as a teacher to worry less and
relax more. (Perhaps this comes with practice.) This experience does
underscore for me the very real pleasures of working with adult
learners who are in community classes because they want to be, who do
participate freely, and with whom you can develop friendly
relationships without concern.

In summation, despite some
questions over presentation, yes, I would use this type of activity
with a real class. I think the writing benefits of an e-pal arrangement
would be considerable.